"'But for the third time he bade me "See, and seeing, learn;" and as I looked upon the land which lay below me, I saw—instead of the realm of endless night—a shining city of such unimaginable beauty, that my heart sank within me in breathless awe. Then the angel spread forth his wings still and motionless, and we reposed on the azure air as a planet floats upon the purple bosom of night; and though neither sun nor moon was set in the peaceful heaven, I saw that there rested over the city the soft splendour as of a world of far-off stars. There was but one gate, and over that was written in letters of light, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," at which I marvelled exceedingly; and inside the gate walked beings of such divine dignity and soul beauty that I could have knelt worshipping before them, were it not that they too were of human form and feature; and I saw that all were earnestly but unhastily engaged in some manner of work, at which they toiled serenely. And on every forehead was set the seal of a high purpose, and over the city there rested the calm of an immeasurable peace. Then silently upstole in the sky the dawnings of a great light, deep and wide as the infinite of Heaven, and athwart the glory thereof there spread the fore-splendours as of the approach of an Awful Presence.
"'And around me fell a darkness like unto midnight, and, turning to me yet again the angel said, "Mortal, thou mayest behold no more. Return to thy home and to thy labour, never more to murmur or complain, and when thou longest after the repose of the world to come, know for a surety that there is no rest either in earth or in heaven, save in the fulfilment of the work which God would have thee to do;" and so saying, he too passed away into the darkness, and—I awoke.'"
"That is a singular dream," I said, "although it was scarcely necessary to have mentioned that your friend had been making a study of Jean Paul. But I suppose there really is work to do in Heaven?"
"It is very much as it is on earth in that respect," she answered, "excepting that here one loves one's work, and, although here too, there are alternate periods of labour and repose, it would be difficult for some of us to say which is the sweeter. I could tell you which I love the more, but then all our work is of our Father's ordering, and He knows just what is best for each of us. Some who come here (never mind my smile! I was thinking of the 'tired woman' who was 'going to do nothing for ever and ever') have to take a very long holiday before they are allowed to put hand to anything; and others there are whose first task it is to learn those lessons which, through unfavourable circumstances or the accidents of their birth, it was hardly to be expected they could have learned on earth. There are some of the poorest of the poor in East London, among whom by our Father's direction I am now working, who I believe have had scarcely more opportunity of knowing what Christianity means to them than have the very heathen. Some, when they come here, have to start from the beginning, so you can believe that for you who can write, as well as for those who can preach, there is every opportunity for the exercise of God's gifts—only remember!" she added sadly, but with a smile, "that the popular preacher of earth, be he poet or parson, is not always the man who can do most good in heaven, for here one is expected to practise as well as to preach."
"So you are entrusted with the task of ministering to certain of the poor in East London?" I said; "I had no idea that our Father permitted those who had once left the world to return to it again."
"Half of our work, and more, is on earth," she made answer. "It was to tell you of that that I pointed out my poet-friend, the dreamer of dreams, to you. Himself a poet, he was the son of a poet, who had lived to see all else he loved on earth pass away before him; and when this boy, his darling hope and only companion, was also taken, the old man was left lonely, desolate and infirm. But not so lonely as one might imagine, for his boy seldom leaves him, and the work which God has set apart for the poet-son, and which is to him the resting-work of heaven, is to be with his father in all sorrow, to minister to him in all pain, and to be with him in every wakeful or weary moment, his unseen comforter and friend."
I was interested in what she related, for I remembered that when I was sitting one evening with the poet-father, he had told me that, for all his loneliness, he was never alone. "No, I am never lonely," he said, "although you will perhaps think what I am going to tell you is but an old mans' fancy. A night or two after my dear boy died, I was thinking of my dead youth, and of my dead wife, of my dead friends and my dead children, until it seemed to me as if I, too, ought long since to have been buried, for I was lingering on (like a spectral moon when the sun is high) the living ghost of a vanished past. The generation had departed which I knew, and the one which was growing up around me was too busy listening to the songs of its own singers to give ear to mine. As the thought of my loneliness, my loveless life, and my boy's newly-made grave, away out in the dreary cemetery, came over me, I did that which was cowardly and faithless, and dropped my head upon my hands and wept. Then it was that there came a touch upon my arm, and a voice in my ear, and though I knew none else was in the room, I was not afraid, but answered without looking up: 'Who is it?'
"'It is only I, dear father,' the voice replied, 'only your boy. You must not be unhappy about me, for though I have greatly sinned, yet I have been greatly forgiven, and am perfectly, peacefully happy.'
"My son then went on to tell me," the old man continued, "that for me there was to be no more loneliness, for that in all my sleepless nights and sorrowful days, he would be with me ever and always, my constant companion and comforter, until for me too the time shall come when,
"'Midnight waking, twilight weeping, heavy noontide—all are done.'"